The last week has been interesting to say the least. May you live in interesting times is apparently an old Chinese curse – I always seem to live in interesting times and mostly love it.
Eventually we got out of Prague last Thursday night, it had been a day full of seeing people and we were a bit tired. We were quiet in the car driving north out of the city. The peace of being out of the city felt like it was sinking into us. It was dark when we got to the country house we are staying in right now. We found the fuse box and put on the lights, got the linen out and made up our beds – then sat outside and listened to the sound of the country and not our usual sounds of city living.
The Floods
I am learning a lot about what it takes to keep a house that is only lived in during the summer. Now there would not be as much work if it was Ireland, where we live normally, but here in the Czech Republic it gets very cold during the winter and the water pipes in the house freeze, this means that the house has to be closed up properly before the winter comes around – yes draining all the water pipes and even then it is sometimes not enough.
Anyway we got up to find the down stairs in two inches of water. We had switched on the water the night before and everything had seemed fine. However there was one pipe in the bathroom that is connected to the mains that had a hole and had been running water full blast all night. We got it shut off and then eventually got a plumber. There was more than one problem we had discovered before the plumber turned up, but thankfully he sorted them all.
My First Chain Saw
I am a man and I will the the first to admit that in some ways we men just never grow up. We are not here that much, but we are back and forward at least twice every year. I went out after the water was cleared and started cutting some wood for the fire down stairs. My thoughts were lets heat the place up and get everything dried out.
The saws were crap – old, blunt and not fit for purpose anymore. Okay, I though, what about a chainsaw? So off to the local hardware store who as well as selling us a chainsaw, threw in an axe and a net book – why a netbook? Who cares, Anna’s computer at home has been playing up since we moved house so there was one grateful recipient.
I have been happily cutting wood for the last couple of days – my new toy is great. I want to cut down a very large tree at the bottom of the garden, (ants have killed it by nesting in the trunk), but my adult man kicks in and reminds me that we are only here for a week. But I will be back for a few weeks in August – I can wait.
This Website Went Off Line
Thankfully last year broadband was installed here – it is great, in the middle of no-where and the speed is great. So instead of suffering internet withdrawal symptoms I can now check my web stats in the morning and at night. I try to keep it at this level when on holiday – sometimes the odd blog post like this. Checking the stats I noticed something odd, I also had an email saying the forum was down. The server had hit a limit and switched off, ten minutes or so and it was back running again, but it had been down for a few hours, if I did not have internet access it would have been off until Thursday morning.
I have three days left before I go back home and to work. I would now like to live in non-interesting times…